The Democratic Tasks of the Revolutionary Proletariat[3]

Published:Proletary, No. 4, June 17 (4), 19O6.

      Published according to the text inProletary.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Foreign Languages Publishing House,1962,

      Moscow,Volume 8,

      pages511-518.Translated:Bernard Isaacs and The Late Isidor LaskerTranscription\Markup:B. BagginsPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2000).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

The[Russian] Social
Democratic Party,

as the conscious exponent of the working-class
movement, aims at the complete liberation of the toiling masses from every form
of oppression and exploitation. The achievement of this objective—the
abolition ofprivate
      propertyin themeans
      of productionand the creation of thesocialist
      society—calls

for a very high development of theproductive
      forcesof capitalism and a high degree of organisation of the working class. The
full development of the productive forces in modern

bourgeoissociety, a broad,
free, and open class struggle, and the political education, training, and
rallying of the masses of the proletariat are inconceivable without politicalfreedom.

Therefore it has always been the aim of the class-conscious
proletariat to wage a determined struggle for complete political freedom and
the democratic revolution.

Theproletariat is not alone in setting this task before itself. The
bourgeoisie, too, needs political freedom. The enlightened members of the
propertied classes hung out the banner of liberty long ago; the revolutionary
intelligentsia, which comes mainly from these classes, has fought heroically
for freedom. But the bourgeoisie as a whole is incapable of waging a determined
struggle against the autocracy; it fears to lose in this struggle its property
which binds it to the existing order; it fears an

all-toorevolutionary action
of the workers, who will not stop at the democratic revolution but will aspire
to the socialist revolution; it fears a complete break with officialdom, with
the bureaucracy, whose interests are bound up by a thousand ties with the
interests of the

propertiedclasses. For this reasonthe bourgeois struggle for liberty is notoriously timorous, inconsistent, and
      half-hearted. One of the tasks of the proletariat is to prod the
      bourgeoisie on, to raise before the whole people slogans calling for a
      complete democratic revolution, to start working boldly and independently
      for the realisation of these slogans—in a word, to be the vanguard,
      to take the lead in the struggle for the liberty of the whole people.

Inthe pursuit of this aim the Russian Social-Democrats have had to fight many a
battle against the inconsistency of bourgeois liberalism. Let us recall, for
instance, how Mr. Struve began his career, unhampered by the

censor,as a
political champion of the “liberation” of Russia. He made hisdébutwith his preface to the Witte
“Memorandum”, in which
he advanced the markedly “Shipovian” (to use the current political
nomenclature) slogan, “Rights, and an Authoritative Zemstvo”. The
Social-Democratic Party exposed the retrogressive, absurd, and reactionary
nature of that slogan; it demanded a definite and uncompromising democratic
platform, and itself put forward such a platform as an integral part of its
Party programme. Social-Democracy had to combat the narrow conception of the
aims of democracy which obtained in its own ranks when the so-called Economists
did their best to play down these aims, when they advocated the “economic
struggle against the employers and the, government”, and insisted that we
must start by winning rights, continue with political agitation, and only then
gradually (the theory of stages) pass on to political struggle.

Nowthe political struggle has become vastly extended, the revolution has spread
throughout the land, the mildest liberals have become “extremists”;
it may therefore seem that historical references to the recent past such as we
have just made are out of place, with no bearing on the actual turbulent
present. But this may seem so only at first glance. To be sure, such slogans as
the demand for a Constituent Assembly and for universal, direct, and equal
suffrage by secret ballot (which the Social-Democrats long since and in advance
of all presented in their Party programme) have become common property; they
have been adopted by the illegalOsvobozhdeniye, incorporated in the
programme oftheOsvobozhdeniyeLeague, turned into Zemtsvo slogans, and are now
being repeated in every shape and form by the legal press. That Russian
bourgeois democracy has made progress in recent years and months cannot be
doubted. Bourgeois democracy is learning by experience, is discarding primitive
slogans (like the Shipovian “Rights, and an Authoritative Zemstvo”) and is
hobbling along behind the revolution. But it is only hobbling along behind; new
contradictions between its words and its deeds, between democracy in

principleand democracy in“Realpolitik”, are arising in place of the
old; for revolutionary developments are making steadily growing demands on
democracy. But bourgeois democracy always drags at the

tailof events; while
adopting more advanced slogans, it always lags behind; it always formulates the
slogans several degrees below the level really required in the real
revolutionary struggle for real liberty.

Indeed,let us take that now current and generally accepted slogan, “For
a Constituent Assembly on the basis of universal, direct, and equal suffrage by
secret ballot”. Is that slogan adequate from the standpoint of consistent
democracy? Is it adequate in the light of the urgent revolutionary tasks of the
present moment? The answer to both these questions can be only in the
negative. To be convinced that this is so one has only to examine carefully our
Party programme, to which our organisations, unfortunately, do not often refer
and which they quote and disseminate all too little. (As a happy exception,
worthy of the

widestemulation, we note the recent reprint of our Party
programme in leaflet form by the Riga, Voronezh, and Moscow committees.) The
keynote of our programme, too, is the demand for a popular Constituent Assembly
(let us agree, for

brevity’ssake, to use the word “popular” as
denoting suffrage that is universal, etc.). But this slogan does not stand
isolated in our programme. The context and the addenda and notes prevent any
miconstruction on the part of those who areleast consistent in the struggle
for liberty or who even struggle against it. It occurs in our programme in
conjunction with the following other slogans:

(1) theoverthrowof the

tsaristautocracy;

(2) its replacement by the democraticrepublic;(3)
thesovereignty of the people, safeguarded by a democratic
constitution, i.e., the concentration of supremegovernmental authorityentirelyin the hands of a legislative assembly
    composed of representatives of the people and forming a single chamber.

Canthere be any doubt that every consistent democrat is

obligatedto accept all
these slogans? Why, the very word “democrat”, both by its etymology
and by virtue of the political significance it has acquired throughout the
history of Europe, denotes an adherent of the sovereignty of the people. It is
absurd, therefore, to talk of democracy and in the same breath to reject even a
single one of these slogans. But the main contradiction, the contradiction
between the desire of the bourgeoisie to preserve private property at all costs
and its desire for liberty, is so profound that spokesmen or followers of the
liberal bourgeoisie inevitably find themselves in this ridiculous position. As
everyone knows, a very broad liberal party is

forming Itself inRussia with
enormous rapidity, a party which has the adherence of theOsvobozhdeniyeLeague, of the mass of the Zemstvo people, and of
newspapers likeNasha Zhizn, Nashi Dni, Syn Otechestva, Russkiye

			   Vedomosti,[1]etc., etc. This liberal-bourgeois party likes to be called the
“Constitutional-Democratic” Party. In actual fact, however, as can
be seen from the declarations and the programme of the illegalOsvobozhdeniye, it is amonarchistparty. It does not want a
republic at all. It does not want a unicameral assembly, and it proposes for
the Upper House indirect and virtually non-universal suffrage (residence
qualification). It is anything but anxious for the supreme governmental
authority to passentirelyinto the hands of the people (although for
window-dressing purposes it is very fond of talking about the transfer of power
to the people). It does not want the autocracy to beoverthrown.It
wants only a division of power among (1) the monarchy; (2) the Upper House
(where landowners and capitalists will predominate); and (3) the Lower House,
whichaloneis to be built on democratic principles.

Thus,we have before us the indisputable fact that our “democratic”
bourgeoisie, even as represented by its most advanced, most educated elements,
those least subject tothe direct influence of capital, is trailing behind the revolution. This
“democratic” partyfearsthe sovereignty of the
people. While repeating our slogan of a popular Constituent Assembly, it in
fact completely distorts its

senseand significance and misleads the people by
its use, or, rather, abuse.

Whatis a “popular Constituent” Assembly? It is an assembly which,
in the first place, really expresses the will of the people. To this end we must
have universal suffrage in all of its democratic aspects, and a full guarantee
of freedom to conduct the election campaign. It is an assembly which, in the
second place,really has the power and authorityto
“inaugurate” a political order which will ensure the sovereignty of
the people. It is clear as daylight that without these two conditions the
assembly can be neither truly popular nor truly

constituent.Yet our liberal
bourgeois, our constitutional monarchists (whose claim to be democrats is a
mockery of the people) do not want real safeguards to ensureeitherof
these conditions! Not only do they fail to ensure in

any waycomplete freedom of
election propaganda or the actual transfer of power and authority to the
Constituent

Assembly,but, on the contrary, theyseek to makebothimpossiblesince they aim at maintaining the monarchy. The real power
and authority is to remain in the hands ofNicholas
      the Bloody.

This means that
the dire enemy of the people is to convene the assembly and “ensure”
that the elections will be free and universal. How very democratic! It means
that the Constituent Assembly will never have and (according to the idea of the
liberal bourgeois) must never have all power and all authority; it is to be
utterly devoid of power, devoid of authority; it is merelyto come to terms,
to reach an agreement, to arrive at an understanding, to strike a bargainwith Nicholas II for the assembly to be granted a modicum of his royal power!
The Constituent Assembly elected by universal suffrage is to differ in no way
from a Lower House. That is to say, the Constituent Assembly, convened for
expressing and executing the will of the people, is designed by the liberal
bourgeoisie to “constitute”,over the will ofthe people,
the will of an Upper House and on top of that the will of the monarchy, the
will of Nicholas.

Isit not obvious that in talking, speechifying, and shouting about a popular
      Constituent Assembly, the liberal bourgeois, theOsvobozhdeniyegentry, are actually planning ananti-popular consultativeassembly? Instead of emancipating the people, they want to subject the
    people, by constitutional means, first, to the power of the tsar
    (monarchism), and, secondly, to the power of the organised big bourgeoisie
    (the Upper House).

Ifanyone wishes to dispute this conclusion, let him assert: (1) that there can
be a true expression of the popular will in elections without complete freedom
of propaganda and without the actual abolition of all the propaganda privileges
of the tsarist government; or (2) that an assembly of delegates devoid of real
power and authority, in that these are left in the hands of the tsar, is not,
in effect, a mere consultative body. To make either of these assertions one must
be either a brazen charlatan or a

hope lessfool. History proves conclusively
that a representative assembly coexisting with a monarchical form of
government is in actual fact, so long as governmental power remains in
the hands of
the monarchy, a

consultativebody which does not bend the will of the monarch to
the will of the people, but onlyconformsthe will of the people to the
will of the

monarch, i. e.,divides the power between monarch and people,
bargains for a new order, but does not constitute it. History proves
conclusively that there can be no such thing as really free elections, that the
significance and character of these elections can hardly be brought home to thewholepeople unless the government that is combating the revolution is
replaced by a provisional revolutionary government. Granting for a moment the
improbable and the impossible, namely, that the tsarist government,
having decided to convene a “Constituent” (read:
consultative) Assembly,
will giveformalguarantees of freedom of propaganda, all the vast
advantages and superior facilities for campaigning which accrue from the
organised power of the state will nevertheless remain in its hands. These
advantages and facilities for propaganda during the elections to the first
people’s assembly will be enjoyed by the very ones who have oppressed the people
by all the means in their power, and from whom the people have begun
to

wrestliberty by force.

Ina word, we

arriveat the very conclusion we reached on the previous occasion
(Proletary,

			       No. 3),[2]when we examined this question from another
angle. The slogan of a popular Constituent Assembly, taken by itself,
separately, is at the present time a slogan of the monarchist bourgeoisie, a
slogan calling for a deal between the bourgeoisie and the tsarist
government. Only the overthrow of the tsarist government and its replacement by
a provisional revolutionary government, whose duty it will be to convene the
popular Constituent Assembly, can be the slogan of the revolutionary
struggle.

Letthe proletariat of Russia have no illusions on this score; in the
din of the general excitation it is being deceived by the use of its own
slogans. If we

failto match the armed force of the government with the force of
an armed people, if the tsarist government is not utterly defeated and replaced
by a provisional revolutionary government, every representative assembly,
whatever title—“popular”, “constituent”, etc.—may
be conferred upon it, will in fact be an assembly of representatives of the big
bourgeoisie convened for the purpose of bargaining with the tsar for a division
of power.

Themore the people’s struggle against the tsar comes to a head and the greater
likelihood there is of a speedy realisation of the demand for an assembly of
people’s representatives, the more closely must the revolutionary proletariat
watch the “democratic” bourgeoisie. The sooner we gain freedom, the
sooner will this ally of the proletariat become its enemy. Two circumstances
will serve to cloak this change:

(1) the vagueness, incompleteness, and non-committal character of the would-be
    democratic slogans of the bourgeoisie; and

(2) the endeavour to turn the
    slogans of the proletariat into mere phrases, to substitute empty promises
    forrealsafeguards of liberty and revolution. The workers must now
    watch the “democrats” with intensified vigilance. The words
    “popular Constituent Assembly” will be nothing more than words
    if,

owingto the actual conditions under which the election campaign and the
    elections themselves are conducted, this assembly fails to express the will
    of the people, if it lacks the strength independently to establish the new
    order.The cardinal issue is now shifting from the question of summoning the popular
      Constituent Assembly to the question of themethodby which it
    is to be summoned. We are on the eve of decisive events. The proletariat
    must not pin its faith in general democratic slogans but must contrapose to
    them its own proletarian-democratic slogans in their full scope. Only a
    force guided by these slogans can really ensure the complete victory of the
    revolution.

[1]Our Life, Our Days, Son of the Fatherland, Russian
Recorder.—Ed.

[2]See pp. 492-93 of this volume.—Ed.

[3]The article“The Democratic Tasks of the Revolutionary
Proletariat”was reprinted inBorba Proletariata,
No. 2, July 15 (28), 19O5.